Mini PCs have taken the world by storm in recent years as powerful components become smaller and cheaper, allowing form factors to shrink.
A recent entrant into the race for the best mini PC is the Firebat Z8, a new model from a little-known Chinese company that promises some very attractive features in a fairly small package.
The news comes via Notebookcheck.net (translating a French news website), which says the Firebat Z8 packs the high-end AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS along with a Radeon 780M GPU, meaning users will get a lot for their money.
In terms of connectivity, despite its small size, the Firebat Z8 includes a USB-C port, two HDMI ports, two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, two USB-A 3.2 ports, and finally, two USB 2.0 ports. All of this allows the Z8 to support up to four 4K monitors.
While these specs are welcome, they're very much in line with other mini PCs on the market right now, and what sets the Firebat Z8 apart from its rivals is the price: the model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD costs just $371 (or CNY 2,699).
It probably goes without saying that a powerful PC with top-of-the-line processing and graphics that costs less than $400 is, well, pretty remarkable, and even the most powerful version with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs around $450 (or CNY 3,299).
Sadly, these are simply Chinese price conversions and Firebat has offered very little in terms of pricing and availability elsewhere, but the company's previous products have been released more widely and at great prices.
Mini in name only
Finding the best mini PC is something we've spent quite a bit of time on, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the most obvious candidate for most people is the Mac mini, which is vastly improved with Apple's custom silicon.
In our testing, the Mac mini (M2, 2023) blew away the competition thanks to its combination of power and small form factor, which is ideal for most small desktops. There are questions about how much the extra RAM and storage costs, but they're not new or exclusive to its desktop Mac.
Windows lovers, don't despair: we loved the Beelink U59, a great value mini PC that runs a bloatware-free version of Windows 11 and packs great performance for its size thanks to Intel chips.
